


Providence

by eldritcher



Series: The Heralds of Dusk [8]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 06:47:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4009942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritcher/pseuds/eldritcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His shaking fingers clasped mine and I imagined for an indescribably painful heartbeat that the hand of a provident God was upon us both then.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Providence

Shortly after The Battle of the Sudden Flame,

1st Age,

Himring.

 

 

The window had the same view of bare mountain and snow covered hutments as did every other window in the fortress. I had never particularly cared for this bleak view. No, it was not for drinking in the landscape that I remained a fixture before the window now. 

There was yet another boisterous cheer from the courtyard below and I hated myself for edging close to the wall furtively and peering down. They were celebrating the nuptials of one of the youngest soldiers who had sworn life, limb and sword to the service of his liege lord. I felt a stab of unhappiness as I thought of the maid who would enter the marriage chamber today with rosy hopes for a future as was sung in those insipid, sentiment-ridden ballads of lovelorn minstrels. This world - caught as we were between the ambition of one God and the curse of another - offered neither hope nor happiness to our race.

“Macalaurë!” 

I turned to face the door on the threshold of which stood my elder brother, his ceremonial robes cast away for the freedom afforded by tunic and breeches. It was unusual. He preferred robes since he did not wish to unsettle others by displaying his maimed arm. 

“The bride expressed a desire to see me attired thus,” he explained, breaking into my thoughts as he often did. 

“Most gracious of you to indulge her,” I said expressionlessly. 

He did look younger, clad as he was. The tunic was carefully tailored so that the disfigurement was hidden as much as it could be. I bit down a sigh as he leant against the door frame, the jaunty angle maddeningly familiar from days in Tirion when he would stand so for hours on end while hearing me play the lyre. I could not afford to give away anything. How I wished that I had joined my wife in Barad Eithel! Being with my brother and remaining cold to his tentative overtures as he tried to rekindle our chaste relationship of old was draining my non-existent reserves of determination and courage.

“She is a young woman,” he said. “Her husband is stationed on the eastern marches. You know as well as I do the life expectancy of a soldier there. If it is in my power to indulge the whims of the loved ones of my men, then I will indulge them.”

Shadows returned to those eyes and what had been shining silver became dull ash. With effort, I refrained from begging him to return to the jovial spirits of scarce instants ago. Instead, with all the coldness I could muster into my voice, I enquired of his errand.

“The fire is still high. The night is young. Why are you not with them? I cannot believe that they tired of you so quickly. Had the bride no other whims?”

It was with only bloody determination that I kept myself from leaping out of the window when I saw the sliver of hurt in those eyes.

“I came to fetch you,” he said quietly. “They wish to hear you sing.”

There was the taut set of his lips that I knew well. He was remembering, as was I, about the last time I had sung in public. It had been after Findaráto’s coronation ceremony. We had parted in bitterness after that, my brother and I. 

“Tell them I have retired for the night,” I said. “I will not sing ballads that are lies built around what cannot be.”

“Indis once told me that an illusion of happiness is better than no happiness at all,” he replied. 

“I have found it easier to let go of wispy dreams and ground myself in realities. Accepting what is and what cannot be.” He made to interrupt, but I hurried on, “Lingering in dreams is as profitable in the long run as is reckless pursuit of carnality in a bid to forget.”

His eyes flashed and he was no longer leaning against the door frame. With effort, he quelled the words that rose angrily demanding to be voiced and instead settled for a curt remark of leave-taking. 

He returned to the revelries by the fire. I returned to my solitary, furtive watch by the window trying to suppress the bile rising in my throat as he offered wine to the newly-weds heralded by the cheers of his warriors. When he laughed and obligingly offered his cheek for a chaste kiss from the girl, my fingers clenched the window frame and I closed my eyes.

 

After the incident, he went out of his way to avoid me. One of his commanders hinted to me that he was throwing himself into recklessness. Fear swallowed me whole. We were so close to the hell which had forged him anew. I had barely escaped with my sanity intact after the ordeal. Another - I could not bear even the thought of it.

All crimes are not the same. So when I nicked a particular tendon of his war horse, I justified that the mute beast’s crippling was a less grievous crime than letting my brother run headlong into yet another reckless massacre. Conspiring with his commanders to alert him to false feuds within the warriors’ ranks so that his time was consumed by trying to reconcile the men, bribing men to act in these false feuds, lacing his milk with sleeping draughts and using underhanded means to prevail upon him to repair the castle defences - these were all crimes, yes. But they were not in the same rank as sending him with a smile and a wave to a petty strife at the front that might be an ambush.

If he discerned my hand in bringing about his confinement to home and hearth, he did not confront me. 

He needed me. I knew that well. There had been long epistles from kinsmen who had tried to keep an eye on him before I had arrived here. Estranged as I had been from my elder brother, I had done my best to pay a deaf ear to their plaintive summons of me. Now that I was finally here, due to circumstances beyond even my brother’s manipulations, I could see what he had become and I loathed myself for it. This circle of recklessness and philosophy would not have started if I had not left him when I had. Seeing the consequences of my desertion, I had sworn silently that I would never leave him alone again. Ironic, how this vow of mine was in conflict with another vow I had made. Well, my doom, as I referred to it in my mind, was a paradoxical one.

 

I would wander alone in the bleak woods, often stopping to admire the serenity of lakes and pristine glaciers, all the while onset by those churning emotions my brother had an especial talent in provoking in my sorry heart. 

Then one morning, when I had been walking in the direction of one of those ponds around the fortress that boasted glacial origin, I heard a tread I recognised instantly. I plunged a notch further into my pit of perpetual misery.

This part of the castle surround was deserted in all seasons, a reason why I preferred to lurk here. During all my ventures to the pond, I had never seen my brother in the vicinity. That meant nothing though, given that he was skilled enough to evade detection when he wished it so. 

I remained still, not daring to even breathe but in the softest of susurrations. He seemed unfamiliar with the terrain. He paused more than once, tilting his head and calculating his position. Wondering what had brought him into this abandoned, leech-infested area, I followed him, albeit very carefully.

Then it happened all at once. In my unsettled frame of mind, as preoccupied with our fractured relationship as I was, I had forgotten all about the pond that lay before us. I had equally forgotten that there was a sharp decline from this side to the water which was why I preferred another path. But I had been following him and had not thought of anything else. It was only when I heard the crash of a body in the water, following by his half-strangled shout that I rushed to the pond, foregoing all thought and sense.

Leaping into the pond, shuddering involuntarily as the cold struck hammer nails into my skin even through my warm robes, finding him by blind panic and instinct, slapping his hand away when it came up in a token of protest, dragging him to the shore and pulling his limp form entirely out of the water - the work of mere instants as spurred by fear as I had been then.

It was only when we were both ashore, sodden and shivering, that coherent thought settled in. I cursed, colourfully, and slumped down beside him, burying my face in the crook of my right hand as I did so. 

We were closer than we had been in many years. I could feel the shudders wracking his body, the harsh breathing that he strove to even and the numbness setting into his fingers as he clasped my shoulder. 

“What were you doing here alone?” I barked, sitting up and trying to squeeze my clothes dry. 

“Searching for you,” he murmured, his words punctuated by the chattering of teeth. I wanted to be one of the Maiar then, so that I could conjure fire and warmth and dry clothes right there. 

“Letter from Artanis.” 

He opened his eyes and the clear grey of those pools had the most disconcerting effect on my defences when conjoined with the flushed features and the wet tendrils of crimson plastered to the said flushed features. His eyelashes were clumped together, making them darker and thicker than they were. I tore my gaze away and scowled at the thrice-cursed pond that had conspired with fate.

With a sigh, he sat up and began tugging at the laces of his robes. I turned to face him, changed my mind and averted my gaze to the rippling water before asking him an entirely redundant question spurred more by horror than by a true desire to ask.

“What are you doing?” 

His fingers paused in their task and he said calmly, “You have seen me at my worst, brother.”

I grumbled an inaudible curse and remained with my gaze on the water that was slowly settling back to its pristine state. I could hear the wet slopping of clothes as they were squeezed dry and spread on the ground. I did not turn. He did not speak. A long time later, after an ant had made its way from my ankle to my shoulder despite my numerous attempts to flick it away, I heard him murmuring under his breath. The colourful language he used told me immediately that he was drifting into his dreams. Now my brother and dreams have always had a very adverse association. I sighed and began humming. It tore my heart and yet made me immeasurably proud when the murmurs quieted and he slid into peaceful rest lulled by my song. 

I reminded myself of vows and choices and scowled at the pond while he slept. When came a wind stronger than the mild afternoon breeze that had played thus far through the glade, he shifted and called my name in a sleep-warmed voice that did nothing to help my composure. If I had been possessed of less pride, I would have thrown myself into the water and attempted drowning. Unfortunately - when was I ever fortunate? - my father’s pride had manifested itself in me.

“I am here,” I muttered. “We should return. Your warriors might start a search.”

“They humour me as they humour any other battle survivor,” he said sleepily, his diplomatic veneer yet to fall over his natural candour. “And my family humours me as an eccentric who is a step away from insanity.”

“If you were insane I would tell you so,” I said uncharitably, too shaken by his frank assessment to formulate a better reply.

He affected a sigh at that and fell silent. I turned to face him, to meet his gaze as was my wont when we discussed something, and then I remembered why I had turned away in the first place. 

“Macalaurë,” he began in sincere vexation, his silver gaze rapidly gaining sharpness from its sleepy languidness. “How many times must I apologise?”

“What caused this?” I asked, more in concern than in a bid to divert the subject. I let my hovering index finger trace the stark white line of new skin on his left flank. His commander had been right, I discovered in rising horror. The body I had spent nights and days nursing, healing and weeping over had been restored to health when I had last seen it unclad. But now, with his recklessness, he was testing and breaking his body as he saw fit. Scars, fading and new, littered the altar where I had forbidden myself worship.

“I frankly have no recollection of obtaining such an interesting scar,” he murmured, twisting his neck to survey the line. “Perhaps the healer had sedated me again when I rode in injured. It blurs my memories. I understand that he has a certain Prince’s most willing assistance in lacing my repast and drink with sedatives.” He threw an accusatory look at me then and I had the good grace to look away in chagrin. 

“Seeing that you saved me from the dragon, I think I owe you a debt of life. I might as well as ensure that you do not meet your end by recklessness,” I muttered. 

At the moment, what toil it took me to will myself unaffected by the thought of his recklessness and the possible consequences - I wondered if it would ever end; this purgatory of mine. 

“Pride, thy name is Macalaurë,” he said evenly before rising to his feet and walking over to inspect the condition of his clothes. 

Seemingly satisfied, he pulled them on and enquired if I wished to accompany him back to the castle. I shook my head and watched his retreating form, all the while silently ruing why this wretched chalice was mine to wrestle with.

 

1st Age,

A few years after the kinslaying in Sirion,

Ered Lindon.

 

“Preoccupied?” my brother asked me as he joined me by the placid lake that adjoined our camp. 

“You are proud, you know,” I said. 

He did not reply, instead patiently waiting for my elaboration. We were so attuned to each other, he and I, that the poet in me could not explain it away as anything but a spiritual union. Of course, I would never tell him that. It was one among the many things I could never tell him. This was not because I feared the loss of his regard. No, it was not that. It was something worse that my heart had never come to terms with it - he believed himself unworthy of my regard and that I could not bear. Whatever I said, however I strove to prove my regard, the inchoate vulnerability remained in his heart even as the shadow of the cliffs of Thangorodrim remained in his eyes. One day, I had sworn, one day I would erase every shadow and doubt.

“You once said that pride was symbolised by my name,” I continued my meandering line of thought. His expression changed from affectionate indulgence of my conversation to pensive thoughtfulness. “But you are proud too,” I repeated. “Very proud.”

“There is a difference,” he replied after a while. “My pride is in my self-reliance. Your pride was in your self-denial.”

“I had sworn an oath, Russandol.”

“The strangest truth about any oath is that those whom we strive to protect through the oath suffer the most from it.” There was a peculiar depth of meaning invested in those words that I cared not to explore further. 

“I am a selfish man, brother,” I said quietly. “I desired only to protect what I cherished the most.” 

He did not reply, but when I turned, his features in profile were drawn taut in grimness and I knew I had to break his musings ere they took him further into brooding.

“It is not an easy thing to ask. It is not an easy thing to be the first person to ask,” I paused and turned to meet his starlit silver eyes that held cracks of fear couched amidst layers of hell-wrought determination. “If pride is my name, then courage is yours.”

His eyes widened in plain surprise and his lips parted and closed silently. Then he shook his head and the slip of composure was hastily veiled by wry amusement as he spoke.

“A paean then, is it? I do believe that you missed your calling when you took up music instead of oration.”

“Oration is an art of deception, of convincing another that a falsity is true.”

“When you are at your most scathing, I know that you are at your most truthful,” he remarked dryly.

“Then believe what I say, and what I am, my dear Russandol, for I am always at my most scathing,” I was quick with my repartee.

“Perhaps I should.” The dawning note of realisation in his voice was the crescent of my life’s fulfilment. He whispered, “Perhaps I shall.”

“Ada!” It was Elrond. “It grows late. Will you not join us for supper?” He joined us, taking in our solemn expressions with a curiosity that reminded me of Nolofinwë. 

“Is everything all right, Ada?” he enquired of me concernedly. 

“I believe they are,” I said, fighting to suppress the urge to crow my achievement from the highest pinnacle of Arda.

“Lord Maedhros?” Elrond asked then, turning to my brother.

The dove grey eyes of my brother were still wide as his mind staggered under the force of his epiphany. 

“Go on, Elrond. I will join you in a moment.” After my son had nodded and retreated, I spoke again. 

“Russandol?” I gently recalled him from his swirling thoughts.

He smiled at me then - a slow, tentative smile that eclipsed all my hoarded memories of our past, impishly dimpling the latest scar that had nestled itself close to the left curve of his lips and crinkling the corners of his eyes - I knew then that this was where my life had always led to. Chalice it was, but a chalice I would drain to the dregs without regret. Then he spoke, in a tone wistfully reverential and filled with quiet wonder. 

“Touchstone.”

“Now you flatter me,” I muttered, trying to hide my exultation at his praise. I had never learned to fortify myself from him and I knew that he would read me easily enough. We had never needed words, he and I, though we revelled in them for we loved words.

“Lead on,” he said.

He was not speaking of making our way back to the camp. As I said, he did not need words to communicate with me. But when he did, it was often to couch meanings and subtleties that he had not the courage to voice. And if he did not have the courage to speak them aloud, then I knew nobody else would possess the spirit to do so. For he was courage. 

He was a blasphemer beyond comprehension. But if he had made me his faith, then I would gladly be his reason to be the epitome of courage.

I gasped at that - would I aid his blasphemy instead of endeavouring to set him right? I had always tried to inculcate a measure of devotion to the Valar in Elros and Elrond. I had tried to do the same when I had taught Telpë and my younger brothers. Heartfelt devotion might perhaps erase our doom, so I believed blindly.

“Macalaurë?” 

I remembered the guile-free smile, the dawning wonder in those cloud grey eyes and the reverence in his voice when he spoke my name. It was him. It was always him. He was the only cause I had. If we were to be doomed, blasphemer and idol, then I would coolly light my own pyre without regretting the least of it.

So I turned to face him and nodded my head. His shaking fingers clasped mine and I imagined for an indescribably painful heartbeat that the hand of a provident God was upon us both then.

* * *


End file.
